This Thanksgiving we decided that we would make the trek to Annapolis, MD to be with V’s parents. The whole family is descending on Annapolis so it is bound to be a Wii-filled, overeating, football watching, new baby cuddling good time. I also decided that it would be a good chance to look at some datacenters in the Virginia area because, well what’s a vacation without some quality datacenter tours? Reston, Virginia is home to AOL and at one time the datacenter capital of the world (AOL is to Northern Virginia as DEC is to Boston: It’s hard to go anywhere in Boston that doesn’t have some connection to DEC). So I will be looking at some old AOL places today and if all goes well I should be leaving with a trunk full of free AOL trial CD-ROMs…Christmas will be good to some of you!

Because V has to work it was decided that I would drive down to Annapolis on Monday and she would take the Acela to Baltimore. I could bring the dog and every piece of clothing we own and go rent a car as to not put any more miles on a leased Touareg. Luckily for us Avis still thinks I work at Yahoo! and gives me a generous corporate rate so that was a nice bonus. Avis was kind enough to give me a luxury Dodge Caliberwhich is, as they say, hot. The car kind of looks like something out the Transformer movie but I can’t imagine what it would transform into. Maybe a better car? Maybe an oven? Needless to say this was going to make my 441 miles, 6.58 hour trek special.

Well thanks to some heavy rain and miles and miles of stimulus roadwork the trip actually took 10 hours and felt like 700 miles but in that 10 hours I was able to make the following observations:

1) My Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS, while providing sub-par directions, proved to be a very good speakerphone when connected to my iPhone over Bluetooth. Who knew?
2) I think New Jersey is just messing with people when it comes to tolls. I mean c’mon?!?! Is there anything that expense on the stretch of road that it justifies that many tolls? Do people in NJ have to pay income tax?
3) Merritt Parkway to the Delaware Memorial Bridge all normal road rules are abandoned. This is no such thing as a left hand passing lane. The breakdown lane is just another lane. It’s a free-for-all and at times felt like I was in a Mad Max movie.
4) The Dodge Caliber proved to be a worthy vehicle. Yes, it’s bright orange and clearly designed by people that had never seen other cars but it worked and got me here. I wouldn’t buy one but I wouldn’t tell other people not to buy one.
5) Satellite radio was a HUGE bonus. A very nice and expected surprise that made the trip substantially better. That said Satellite radio is death for those of us with ADD and I must have changed the channels 300 times. In the end The Standup Comedy Channel, The Willie Nelson Channel, The Alternative Rock Channel and the Coffee House Rock Channel proved to be the winners.
5) The Playboy channel on Satellite radio is highly overrated. Yea, I know, what did I expect?

Now I’m off to collect those AOL CDs. I heard that traffic in the D.C. area is fun.